Skilling Up for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), we are currently in our fourth industrial revolution since the 18th century. While previous industrial revolutions brought us the momentous power of steam, electricity and computing, the current revolution promises to be even more groundbreaking than any that preceded it. That is because the fourth industrial revolution is building and extending digitization into every corner of society and human experience, and even into the human body itself. Technologies such as IoT, robotics, VR and AI are changing the world in ways we can’t yet fully predict. What we do know, however, is that these technologies are already calling for significantly upgraded IT skills.

The Top 5 IT Trends

While the fourth industrial revolution is presenting new challenges for professionals who fear that technology will make their jobs obsolete, but at the same time, the implementation of new technology is also introducing new opportunities. In response to this ongoing technological evolution , the WEF recently issued the latest edition of its biennial report on the future of jobs, and its findings are both concerning and hopeful. On one hand, the WEF predicts that 75 million jobs might be lost to technology by the year 2022. On the other, it also predicts that 133 million new roles might emerge, jobs that are better adapted to the new division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms.

The report highlights several technologies that are poised to receive even more business investment over the next three years. Among them are mobile internet, big data, blockchain, cloud computing and machine learning. Each of them includes skill sets that are now in critically short supply.